NORTHERN YOUTHS WRITES OSINBAJO AND ASKS HIM TO ALLOW BIAFRA REPUBLIC
June, 19th 2017
His Excellency,
Professor Yemi Osinbajo,
Acting President,
The Federal Republic of Nigeria,
Aso Rock Presidential Villa
Abuja
OPEN LETTER
Your Excellency,
APPRECIATION
On behalf of this coalition and all the peace-loving people of Northern Nigeria, we begin this letter by commending your efforts towards finding a lasting solution to the lingering Igbo-induced crisis that is undoubtedly overheating the polity.
We sincerely believe Your Excellency’s good intentions as shown by your prompt and genuine actions towards ensuring peace and stability in holding talks with leaders of the North and the South-East.
Though we do not doubt Your Excellency’s bona fide concerns for the peaceful resolution of the crises, we nevertheless have reservations as to the efficacy of this approach in ensuring lasting solutions.
Our doubts are informed by the following historical antecedents that have characterized the behavior and conduct of the Igbo in Nigeria and previous efforts at containing them.
PAST EXPERIENCES
The Igbo of Eastern Nigeria manifested their hatred for Nigeria’s unity barely five years after we gained our independence from the British when on January 15, 1966, their army officers carried out the first-ever mutiny that marked the beginning of a series of crisis which has profoundly altered the course of Nigeria’s history.
By that ill-motivated, cowardly and deliberate action, the Igbo killed many northern officers from the rank of lieutenant colonel upwards and also decapitated the Prime Minister and the political leadership of the Northern and Western regions but left the zenith of Igbo leadership at the Federal level and the Eastern region intact.
In line with the Igbo plan, General Aguiyi-Ironsi took advantage of the vacuum and, instead of returning power to the remnants of the First Republic government, he appropriated the coup and attempted to consolidate it for his people.
Army officers of the Northern Region were eventually compelled to execute a counter-coup on July 29, 1966, following a coordinated series of brazen provocations from the Igbo who taunted northerners on northern streets by mocking the way leaders of the region were slain by the Igbo. This, unfortunately, resulted in mob action which resulted in the death of many Igbos.
And when Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, from the North, took over as Head of State following the counter-coup, the Igbo through Lt. Col. Ojukwu, characteristically refused to recognize Gowon.
[Ojukwu]
Ojukwu declared the secession of the Igbo people from Nigeria and the formation of the Republic of Biafra on May 30, 1967, resulting in a civil war that led to the tragic deaths of more than 2 million Nigerians.
It is important to note here that the Igbo eventually capitulated and conceded defeat in an unconditional surrender, not an armistice, on January 15, 1970, which renders any talk about Biafra at any other time, a repudiation of the terms of that surrender signed by Phillip Effiong and other Biafran leaders.
BIAFRA REINCARNATED
In a shot out of the blues, the Igbo have over the last 2 years regrouped and fiercely and openly started discussing Biafra again under Ralph Uwazuruike of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State Of Biafra MASSOB.
This was given greater impetus by a more furious Igbo rogue group called the Indigenous People Of Biafra IPOB under Nnamdi Kanu who even operates an illegal radio station spreading hate and war messages across the nation, calling other ethnic groups all sorts of names and threatening them with violent extermination.
The activities of the Igbo under Kanu’s IPOB has grown exponentially ranging from ordering people of other regions out of the South East – particularly the Yorubas and Hausa /Fulani from the South West and the North respectively, to open declaration of the amassing of arms and forceful total shutdown of the entire South-East.
KANU
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